Queen Rania: The 21st-Century Queen

She tweets. She blogs. She has nearly 30,000 followers on YouTube. Queen Rania of Jordan is not only “the globe’s most tech-savvy monarch,” in the words of Forbes, but she may be the world’s most up-to-date royal, period. (Certainly she must be the only queen who has a degree in business, listens to Bono, loves Oprah and Hillary, and sometimes drives her four kids to school in a hybrid SUV.) More important, she’s become a leader on one of this century’s key issues: empowering and educating women and girls. “It’s about justice,” she says. “There are 600 million girls [in the developing world; many are] shackled by housework or work in factories; many fall victim to early marriage, sexual abuse, HIV. So I push for girls’ education because it works. Girls’ wages can go up by 20 percent for every year of education [past fourth grade]. Look at any country that’s plagued with poverty, disease or violence; the antidote is girls. Girls are the antibodies to many of society’s ills.”

So far Her Majesty’s efforts have touched the lives of tens of thousands, thanks to her Madrasati (“my school”) project to renovate Jordan’s ailing schools; to programs that assist women entrepreneurs; and to the worldwide 1Goal campaign for schooling. In September she joined the U.N. Foundation’s new Girl Up program to educate hard-to-reach kids. “She’s a modern, educated woman living her life on center stage,” says Isobel Coleman, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “People open their wallets to her.” The Queen, who just turned 40 (“When ur in ur 20s u think these old 40 yr olds have it figured out…not true!” she tweeted), is passing her legacy on to her daughters, Princess Iman, 14, and Princess Salma, 10. “I want them to have a strong belief in themselves,” she says. “To be independent thinkers.” Just like their mom.